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Wednesday, 13 April 2016

Conversation: Lee & Lee

"Wa lau eh! Sister versus brother. Father just one year gone, and the family start to fight. Some more, she say he abused his power. If she dare to say, he better dare to sue. Otherwise people will believe her more than him! Oo hee kwa liao loh!"

"Don't get so excited. There won't be a show. There won't be a lawsuit."

"Why you so sure? The Lees will sue when their reputation is on the line. Here she is accusing him of abuse of power. Smaller things than that they have sued before!"

"What abuse of power? People want to commemorate the father, he just let them. How is that abuse? If anything, she is the one who is out of touch with what the people wants, and is trying to use her influence to stop people if she can."

"Ya lah. I read her post on FB. Just because she no like the way people try to show their respect, she say until like that! Like people can only show their respect her way!"

"Actually, I sympathise with her. I think she and her father are very private persons. And she is obviously very close to her father, and knows him very well. And I can understand why she wants to keep him, his memories to herself, and how she would view all this ostentatious display of "hero-worship" and "hagiography" as revolting to her father."

"I dunno what you talking about. He was a GREAT man, and people wants to show their respect and their admiration. What's wrong with that?"

"Oh, I agree. The needs of the many outweigh the sensitivities of a few. Or even just one. The problem for her is that her father is more than just HER father. He is also the Father of Singapore and Singaporeans. And he has become "public property". Or rather his persona, his life story, his life even "belongs" to the public. Yes, he may not have wanted all this hero-worship, but sadly, that is irrelevant. He gave his life to build Singapore. He may not have understood how much he had to give, and continue giving. He may not have understood that history has a way of claiming the lives of great men, and conscripting them in the service of History and the historical narrative."

"So... you talk so much, all I can understand is that you agree he is a GREAT man."

Why we resist the ideologues

There are... liberal democracies where you can have an "Amos Yee" type freedom.

There are also very sad places where there is little freedom or security, and life is very hard.

And there are a few places where there is quite a lot of chaos and life is uncertain.

Then there are very few places where you can be reasonably civilised and have sufficient security and responsible freedom to have a good life.

Singapore is one such Oasis of sensibleness... we are an Oasis of order, competence, efficiency, and reasonableness in an otherwise chaotic unreasonable, incompetent WORLD. Not just the region.

If Singapore becomes a copy of a Western Liberal Democracy with all the inherent inefficiencies, silliness, drama, and chaos, it would be a very sad thing...

If Singapore breaks down and devolves into a corrupt, ineffective, unfocused, shambling chaotic third world country, it would also be a very sad thing.

There is only one place where you can find Singapore's straightforwardness, integrity, efficiency, competence, order... And that is here, in Singapore.

If we lose this, whether because we lean to much to the left, or whether we let ourselves sink into mediocrity through complacency or a sense of destiny, or divine right, it will be gone.

...so that is why we resist the ideologues.

Trees

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.”

Reminder

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” - Ernest Hemingway

The Tao of Government

"Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthen their bones."

"He constantly (tries to) keep them without knowledge, and without desire, and where there are those who have knowledge, to keep them from presuming to act (on it). When there is this abstinence from action, good order is universal."